Cavitating Bubbles in Condensing Gas as a Means of Forming Clumps, Chondrites, and Planetesimals

Abstract Vaporized metal, silicates, and ices on the verge of recondensing into solid or liquid particles appear in many contexts: behind shocks, in impact ejecta, and within the atmospheres and outflows of stars, disks, planets, and minor bodies. We speculate that a condensing gas might fragment, forming overdensities within relative voids, from a radiation–condensation instability. Seeded with small thermal fluctuations, a condensible gas will exhibit spatial variations in the density of particle condensates. Regions of higher particle density may radiate more, cooling faster. Faster cooling leads to still more condensation, lowering the local pressure. Regions undergoing runaway condensation may collapse under the pressure of their less condensed surroundings. Particle condensates will compactify with collapsing regions, potentially into macroscopic bodies (planetesimals). As a first step toward realizing this hypothetical instability, we calculate the evolution of a small volume of condensing silicate vapor—a spherical test “bubble” embedded in a background medium whose pressure and radiation field are assumed fixed for simplicity. Such a bubble condenses and collapses upon radiating its latent heat to the background, assuming that its energy loss is not stopped by background irradiation. Collapse speeds can range up to sonic, similar to cavitation in terrestrial settings. Adding a noncondensible gas like hydrogen to the bubble stalls the collapse. We discuss whether cavitation can provide a way for millimeter-sized chondrules and refractory solids to assemble into meteorite parent bodies, focusing on CB/CH chondrites whose constituent particles likely condensed from silicate/metal vapor released from the most energetic asteroid collisions.